The Lady Has a Past (Burning Cove #5) - Amanda Quick Page 0,108

Just packed his bags and said he was going to try another career.”

“Where were you when Simon decided to leave?” Lyra asked.

“Seattle,” Otto said. He glared at Simon. “It was at the end of a one-week engagement. We sold out the theater every night. Why did you leave? And don’t tell me it’s because you decided we were a couple of con artists. We gave legitimate demonstrations to audiences who were interested in the paranormal. Yes, we made money doing it, but we were not charlatans, damn it. Your talent is real. Your readings were real. Everything about the show was real.”

Simon stalked across the room and stopped in front of the window. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked out at the view of the sun-splashed Pacific.

“Not real enough,” he said. “I finally figured that out in Seattle.”

A charged silence gripped the room.

“I don’t understand,” Otto said. “You have a genuine talent. Hell, you’re using it to make a living now as an investigator.”

“I’m not talking about my ability,” Simon said. “It was in Seattle that I realized I could never be what you wanted me to be when you took me out of the orphanage.”

“What did you think Otto wanted you to be?” Lyra asked gently.

“A replacement for his son—his real son. The heroic one who survived the Great War only to come home and die of the flu in Seattle.”

“Simon,” Otto whispered. He sounded stricken. “No. It wasn’t like that. Where did you get the idea I saw you as a replacement for Edward?”

“I knew Seattle was difficult for you,” Simon said, “but I didn’t know why until I followed you one afternoon. I knew you had lived in Seattle during the war. I told myself you were going to see an old friend, maybe a woman. But something didn’t feel right. I thought maybe you had gotten into trouble with a loan shark. I was worried.”

“So you followed me to Edward’s grave.”

“You wept, Otto. It was pouring rain, and you cried. I had never seen you cry. You were always so controlled. But you broke down in tears at that grave and I knew there was nothing I could do to console you because I could never be Edward. I was just a poor kid from an orphanage who happened to have a little useful talent.”

A cup and saucer clattered on the coffee table. Simon heard Otto get to his feet. A moment later the man he had once thought of as his father was standing beside him at the window. Together they looked out at the Pacific.

“I never realized you felt I was trying to use you as a replacement for Edward,” he said softly. “The two of you are so very different. Your personalities, your tastes, your interests. No, I never saw you as a stand-in for my first son. But I do see you as my other son. That is who you will always be for me.”

Simon’s throat tightened. “You saved me from the asylum. You made me the man I am today. Those are things that a good father does. I walked away from you and the act that night in Seattle because I was afraid I could never live up to the standard Edward had established.”

“Miss Brazier was right, you know. We rescued each other. You came into my life when I was in despair. I had no one, and I was unable to prove a damn thing with my machine. I was thinking of ending things, if you want to know the truth. When I heard about the boy in an orphanage who was delusional because he believed he sensed ghosts in certain objects, I assumed the doctors were right. I was sure you probably were unstable, like so many others I had tested. But I took one look at you and I saw a boy who needed a family, not an institution. I would have taken you out of that place even if you hadn’t had a lick of paranormal talent. You brought something alive inside me, something I thought had died. You gave me a reason to go on.”

The door of the room opened and closed very quietly. Simon turned quickly. So did Otto.

Lyra was gone.

Chapter 53

Amalie was behind the front desk working on some papers. She looked up when Lyra came downstairs alone.

“Everything okay up there?” she asked.

“I think so,” Lyra said. She reached the bottom step and crossed the lobby to the front desk.